Mayor finds Global Sticks shutdown disappointing

The mayor says he and officials with the local economic development corporation are disappointed that Global Sticks has shut down.

The company has been shut down for three weeks for undisclosed reasons. Keith Hobbs said the Community Economic Development Commission has been working hard babysitting the company for over two years.

“They’ve done a lot of work and it seems like it’s been all for naught,” Hobbs said Wednesday afternoon. “I want to make it perfectly clear to people that Thunder Bay doesn’t have money in this project but we do have a lot of manpower hours.”

Hobbs feels that delays are one of the reasons the company has closed.

“I’ve been critical of the (provincial) government in this and they’ve shot back that you know they’ve done everything they could well I disagree with that,” he said.

The company was not awarded a wood supply and had to resort to wood from Minnesota for a while which hurt the business Hobbs said.

“Well if the government’s putting in $7 million into a company I would want to make sure that they did get a wood allocation otherwise you’re setting them up for failure,” he said.

Company officials are reportedly in Thunder Bay Wednesday but Hobbs said he hasn’t heard from them. They told Thunder Bay Television that the company will speak to media Monday, hopefully with good news. He’s also concerned that this might hurt opportunities for other business to come to the city.

“What message is it sending to big business to set up here,” he said. “We want business coming here not shutting down.”